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Ignoring causes of climate change is political malpractice: Opinion

Updated on August 20, 2017 at 6:31 AMPosted on August 20, 2017 at 6:30 AM

People hold signs as they listen to a group of scientists speak during a rally in conjunction with the American Geophysical Union's fall meeting Tuesday, Dec. 13, 2016, in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

People hold signs as they listen to a group of scientists speak during a rally in conjunction with the American Geophysical Union's fall meeting Tuesday, Dec. 13, 2016, in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)(Marcio Jose Sanchez)

How would you judge a doctor who prescribed a painkiller, but didn't tell you the headache was caused by a brain tumor?

Now, how about a politician who argues for spending millions adapting to rising seas - but doesn't want to address the cause of the problem: climate change propelled by human activity.

That's where we are today in Red State America. Political malpractice.

Over the last few years the physical evidence and economic consequences of climate change have become undeniable. Streets in suburbs housing well-healed voters are flooding just on high tides; shorelines in economically important tourist hubs are shrinking; droughts and record heat waves are forcing restrictions on water usage including for pools, golf courses and lawns in toney subdivisions. So politicians in the reddest of states are responding to constituents' concerns by urging spending on infrastructure projects to address the crisis.

They call these efforts "adaptive strategies" and "resiliency initiatives" to prepare for the changes. But they have learned not to mention what is causes these changes -- the disease behind the symptoms.

A recent example was provided by Nancy Shaver, mayor of St. Augustine, Fla. She's won well-deserved plaudits for organizing Florida mayors to begin preparing for the consequences these rising seas will bring to their low-lying, Gulf-front communities. But as a Democrat in a red state, she knows just mentioning the reason those seas are rising is considered political potty talk in much of Florida and would diminish the chances of getting anything done.

"The minute you go there, you aren't able to focus on the issues at hand, which are really, 'What is it that we do to adapt and to build a new?' " she said, adding she didn't want to "inject politics" into the discussion.

It was a familiar story for me. In the last few years I've had similar discussions with politicians and leaders in the state's multibillion effort effort to save south Louisiana from being swallowed by the Gulf of Mexico -- due to sea level rise powered by greenhouse gas emissions.

Before Garret Graves became a GOP congressman from Baton Rouge, he was head of the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority working for Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal, another climate change skeptic. I remember asking Graves how his agency could justify asking the nation for $50 billion to fund the country's largest, science-based climate change adaption plan without addressing the cause of the crisis. His answer: "We're not going to get involved in that political argument; we're just going to concentrate on developing the best plan possible using the best science available."

As a congressman Graves has followed the party line saying he "isn't convinced" human activity is a major reason for global warming. Instead, Graves said, he's concentrating on securing funding that can help coastal communities adapt to these changing conditions.

In other words, address the symptoms, not the cause. Put a tourniquet on the leg, don't close the source of the bleeding.

Graves' replacement at CPRA was Jerome Zeringue, a veteran fisheries biologist, who is now a state representative for the Houma area and sits on the Governor's Advisory Commission on Coastal Protection, Restoration and Conservation. At a meeting last year, the commission viewed CPRA slides showing its $92 billion coastal plan could no longer hope to stay ahead of the sea level rise under current emission levels. Yet the only discussion was about what structures could be built to adapt to the rising Gulf -- not how to stop it from rising.

In an interview after the meeting Zeringue said he understood the science, and he had seen the science-based models showed much of south Louisiana -- including parts of his district -- could be under water in 50 years if emissions were not reduced.

But he said he didn't raise that issue because his constituents were not interested "in what may or may not happen in 40 years" but on how to pay their mortgage this month. Further, Zeringue said his responsibility as a politician was to reflect the views and priorities of his constituents, not what he himself might believe.

Political leadership has long been a point of serious debate in our democracy. Should elected officials follow their constituency's wishes, even when they know that can lead to disaster? Or do politicians have a responsibility to educate their voters on the actual facts of an issue and explain why their vote is the right one?

Unfortunately, today's red state politicians have been brought to office by an electorate raised largely on a conservative media diet that sees science as a conspiracy of liberalism -- and therefore not to be trusted. In their world, science is under attack by polluter-supported groups such as the Heartland Institute, a libertarian outfit so opposed to regulations it ran a campaign against the research showing smoking caused lung cancer.

GOP politicians from heavily red districts have learned if they stray from the denial orthodoxy, these groups will "primary them" -- meaning they will fund challengers in the next GOP primary. They all remember how conservative GOP Rep. Bob Inglis of South Carolina lost his seat when he read the science on warming and changed his votes on regulations: he lost his seat in the next primary.

Since then Inglis has spent his time creating a home in the conservative world where science and intelligent, fact-based discussion is welcomed. And he has said he believes GOP politicians would vote for climate legislation if they were "allowed to vote their conscience on climate change."

To show how unusual this has become, in 2015 Inglis was awarded a JFK Profile In Courage Award for his decision to spread the scientific facts about climate change. Would you expect a physician to receive an award for courage because he dared tell a patient that the painkillers he prescribed would not solve those crushing headaches because they were caused by a brain tumor?

Of course not. In fact, if he didn't give you the full diagnoses, he could lose his license due to malpractice. We should expect no less of politicians.

Bob Marshall, former Outdoors editor for The Times-Picayune and former environmental reporter for The Lens, will be writing a regular column. He can be reached at bmarshallenviro@gmail.com.